Annie John
When you’re a child, “school” and “family” are the countries you travel between, each offering up a seemingly impenetrable border. I attended four different schools for K-12 (if you count a trimester I spent at a “sister school” across the country), and because none of them were a part of a natural progression (i.e. the elementary that feeds into the middle, etc.), each transfer felt like an initiation into a new nation where the students — even if residents of the same region — were different. Adults don’t necessarily notice these nuances, but kids sure do. School is their LIFE. I’ll always laugh at the line “She doesn’t even go here!” from Mean Girls because it totally encapsulates the “in” or “out” situation of being a part of an institution. (And also because if you ever met someone in a different context, you automatically knew what they meant when they asked, “Where do you go?” No need to finish that prepositional phrase.)
I’m posting late for February’s #WeReadJamaicaKincaid pick — the novel Annie John — but it was a short month, so let’s blame the Gregorian Calendar. (As one does). Kincaid’s use of “school” as the setting for Annie to orbit as she considers her relationship with her mother is just perfect. Annie, upon starting a new school: “What should I do finding myself in a world of new girls, a world in which I was not even near the center?” And then Annie, upon moving up to an older class: “They had no different ideas of how to be in the world; they certainly didn’t think that the world was a strange place to be caught living in.” School is the “world” in which young people flit around, ultimately searching for some magical keys to adulthood. It’s also often where they learn that they have autonomy over their inner lives. Toward the end of Annie John, the chasm between Annie and her mother grows defined not just psychologically, but also physically, as she prepares to leave Antigua for a new world altogether.
So clever of Jamaica Kincaid to subtly mine this part of childhood.
{Once again, another fantastic bundle of resources from @ifthisisparadise for this read-along. Thank you, Kiki! Your newsletter is 💯}
originally published on instagram